5 Best Moments of Laufey’s ‘A Matter of Time’ Tour at New York City’s Madison Square Garden: ‘Hamilton,’ PinkPantheress & More

Hand-wringing and histrionically complaining about the quality of music for younger audiences has become a generational rite of passage, but if Laufey‘s arena-conquering A Matter of Time Tour is anything to go by, late Gen Z and Gen Alpha have stars of their own who are proudly carrying the jazz and vocal pop mantles into a new era of Top 40.

Commencing on Sept. 15 at Orlando’s Kia Center, Laufey’s latest trek touched down at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sept. 26 and will visit major cities across the U.S. and Europe before concluding on March 15, 2026, at Kórinn Arena in her home country of Iceland. The tour is in support of her A Matter of Time album, which reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and topped both Jazz Albums and Independent Albums. After her last LP, Bewitched, won her a Grammy for best traditional pop vocal album and spawned an unlikely hit single in “From the Start,” Laufey was tasked with scaling up her vision and output to match her ever-widening audience. To bring it all to life onstage, the classically trained multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter fashioned her latest LP’s particularly hooky songs into a wholly entertaining five-act presentation.

Armed with a whimsical set design consisting of a castle ballroom mainstage, a smaller second stage shaped like a clock, a makeshift jazz club, Juliette balconies, orchestra risers and a rotating structure atop the “clock’s” hands, Laufey’s A Matter of Time Tour immediately greeted fans with a visual feast. As she tore through a setlist mainly comprised of A Matter of Time tracks and past discography highlights, Laufey delivered pitch-perfect vocals, expansive arrangements tailor-made for an arena environment and several heart-warming moments of banter that underscored her nearly incomprehensible status as a 26-year-old jazz-pop star.

In addition to her own setlist — which oscillated between soaring piano-led ballads (“Goddess”) and adorable choreography (“Tough Luck”) — Laufey also treated her Thursday night (Oct. 16) Madison Square Garden crowd to two special guests: Lin-Manuel Miranda and PinkPantheress. With the former treating the musical theatre aficionados and the latter pleasing the edgier fringes of the TikTok crowd, both guests helped Laufey flaunt her marvelous range, both musically and aesthetically.

Here are the five best moments from the second Madison Square Garden night of Laufey’s A Matter of Time Tour.